Monday, 9 July 2012

Hi.

Thank you to Blod for last weeks interesting Tales from Wales. Veg is still on holiday so we "Not a Hippy" and "Not a Yoghurt Knitter" are having a week in her seat keeping it cosy. We are just over the boarder from Blod in Herefordshire.

Our school is The Steiner Academy Hereford. Steiner schools are a bit different, it is a more holistic approach to education about the child and not targets. Many people think that these schools are for the children of muesli munching yoghurt knitting hippies because the children wear their own bright clothes and chunky boots not a uniform. Steiner education caters to the more creative side of a child. Usually people have to pay to send their children to one of these schools but now we are an Academy and any one can come here for free if there is a place for them.

The day is structured differently. In the morning the children start off by saying a verse, they play recorder and then do movement. After that they start the main lesson. This will be the same topic every morning for several weeks rather that having a lesson of Maths, English, RE, Geography, History or Art each day. There is usually a story to go with the lesson to be remembered for the next day.

The lunches here are vegetarian. The dinner ladies are some of the parents of the students. Each week the menu is the same and there is only 1 choice take it or leave it BUT the food is SO tasty and very wholesome you do not want to leave it. My favourite is the curry (Tuesday).

Today is pizza with carrot sticks, salad and coleslaw, with vegetarian pink jelly for pudding or fresh fruit. The pizza is crispy wholemeal base with a smooth tomato plain cheese topping with no burnt bits. The salad is a crunchy green lettuce and fresh green herb salad with nasturtiums and marigolds in. The coleslaw was creamy. The jelly is pink fruit. The dinner ladies cook everything from scratch and everything is locally sourced or comes on the supermarket truck on a Monday. There never seems to be much waste.

see you tomorrow,
from,
Not a Yoghurt Knitter (Not a Hippy is away on a class trip to the Black Mountains possibly dragon hunting)

VEG here! Dad didn't pass a sent in meal to NAYK in time today so here's a meal from Japan. The blog is visiting Japan for week so there will be more from where this came from!

"Hi, VEG! I'm a big fan of your blog. My name is Corinna, and I'm an American who teaches English in Japan. Here is a photo of today's school lunch. It is my favorite, curry and rice and edamame salad. Here in Japan, there is milk every day and rice at least three days a week. Only the fast eaters get seconds, but the food is very delicious, so the children play rock paper scissors to see who gets the extra! Also, the children serve each other and then clean everything up after!"

The structure of your school day led me to visit your school's website. I am most impressed by the variety of subjects the students are able to learn, and I so wish there had been a Steiner Academy in my school years!

I look forward to reading more about your school and seeing the school meals from the rest of the week. I, too, love curries!

Good job last week BLOD and good start on this week Not a Yoghurt Knitter. It would be pretty hard to knit with yoghurt anyway, wouldn't it? ;-) Both of today's meals look nice, especially the pizza. Although, not being a vegetarian, I'd miss my pepperoni...

Can I ask a favor? To those filling in for VEG during her holiday, please try to put a title on your post. One or two words is fine, as VEG does most of the time (Goodbye, Broken, etc.). Without a title, those of us who use a newsreader to see when a new post is up, can't directly select the page. We don't get a link, just as many as will fit of the first of that day's story, which aren't clickable.

In Japan students from elementary to junior high school eat lunch together. After lunch the students return all the lunch things to the kitchen. Before lunch is served a group of students does set-up and no one eats until every student has a lunch.

Compared to VEG and BLOD, today's blog sounds like it has been written by an adult and more of an advert for the Steiner philosophy than about the school meal. I feel strangely disappointed. Let the kids give their refreshingly honest opinion of the food.

It's sad that only one person has commented on our new guest bloggers first post. She does seem a little older though and not quite as fun but it's only for a week. I would love to learn more about your type of school, I've not heard it before.

Your school sounds amazing. I would like to know how it would even be possible to knit yoghurt though? Some people are very narrow minded but I think it's great that there are schools like that and I wish I could have gone to one.

I agree with Orrchid; I want to hear from the kids. Having said that, the food looked great! I would happily have eaten both the English and the Japanese food. Looking forward to the rest of the vegetarian week and the world food coming up.

Steiner school sounds kind of like Montessori here in the USA. I laughed when I read it though -- I have read all of Alexander McCall Smith's books about Scotland and in one series a mother is obsessed with the "Steiner method." I didn't know it was a real thing!

I have to rather agree that this post sounds more like an adult wrote it. Particularly when the person writing it keeps referring to "the children." One would assume that, if it was one of the students writing it, it would have been written as "WE wear our own bright clothes and chunky boots not a uniform" and "In the morning WE start off by saying a verse, WE play recorder and then do movement. After that WE start the main lesson."

And I think one of the things that particularly bothered me was "We are just over the boarder from Blod in Herefordshire." Perhaps the school needs to spend a bit more time on spelling, and less on "movement"?